The proposed research seeks (1) to identify antecedents in early life environment, especially maternal expectations and behavior, in Japan and America that contribute to individual difference and group difference in child normative (or deviant) development; and (2) to ascertain whether the antecedents are universal or culture-linked. It also focusses on life cycle transitions of the child and its parents during childhood middle-years, using Japanese and American-Caucasian samples for whom we already have an empirically-derived early infance database. The research program examines the relative contributions of early life and "recency" environments through explicit hypothesis-testing, using a comparative, multi-method, longitudinal design. The research is based (1) on evidence that culture groups differ in maternal (and paternal) mechanisms for transmitting cognitive and social behavior norms to new members; (2) on evidence of culture difference and sex difference in child self-expectations and behavior, although with great individual variation; (3) on evidence that the earliest experiences of the human organism may have great importance for subsequent personality and behavioral development; and (4) on the fact that culture first enters as a significant determinant of human development in its prescriptions for maternal behavior toward the child -- fitting" (or "not fitting") him or her into the culture group, and setting the stage for the individual's later participation. The data articulate with a series of closely-related hypotheses about culture transmission and human communication, including possible origins individual and group differences, and of normal or abnormal development in the maturing child.